1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, information processing method, and storage medium for designing an animation in a user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many recent devices and Web applications employ a GUI (Graphic User Interface) that uses animation.
On the other hand, the employment of animations increases the manhours involved in GUI development. This is because the development target, which has conventionally been a GUI formed from just a “still image”, needs to include the new concept of “motion”. Recently known GUI animation design techniques are, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 08-137611 and 2004-102500, Japanese Patent No. 03755500, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-102498, and Japanese Patent No. 03760904. There are also commercially available products such as Expression Blend of Microsoft, FLASH Catalyst of Adobe, and Mobile Designer of Beatware.
These prior arts generally design an animation based on the concepts of “time line” and “frame”. “Time line” is a time axis for animation design. A GUI developer sets feature time points called frames (key frames) on the time axis (on the time line) in a design screen, and then defines an artwork (a still image of GUI associated with the key frame and representing the display form of an object of the animation) for each frame (for each feature time point). The thus generated design data is interpreted by a device that executes the GUI so that images are generated to interpolate images between time points on which the artworks of frames are set. FIG. 3 illustrates an example of an animation design tool 301. This tool includes an artwork edit panel 302 and a time line edit panel 304. The GUI developer first arranges frames 305 and 306 on the time line edit panel 304, and edits artworks corresponding to the frames. For example, the GUI developer selects the arranged frame 305, and edits an artwork 308 corresponding to that frame on the artwork edit panel 302. At this time, it is also possible to select a graphic element from a graphic element palette 303 and arrange it on the edit panel 302. In addition, the edited animation can be confirmed using an animation play button 307.
For example, assume that five frames A, B, C, D, and E are arranged on the time line, as shown in FIG. 4A, and five artworks V, W, X, Y, and Z are defined for the frames, respectively, as shown in FIG. 4B. Then, an animation as shown in FIG. 4C is generated by interpolating the artworks. In the example shown in FIGS. 4A to 4C, the animation shows an elliptical artwork with a text “OK”, which gradually changes its color and size and returns to the original form in 1.4 sec.
It is possible to correct the animation by changing the position of each frame on the time line. For example, when the frame C is moved toward the frame D, the artwork W slowly changes to the artwork X, and the artwork X quickly changes to the artwork Y.
This animation design scheme using the time line and frames requires an artwork for each frame to be created and defined. For example, assume that the frames B and D of the example in FIGS. 4A to 4C should use the same artwork. Even in this case, however, it is necessary to create the identical artworks W and Y as artworks corresponding to the frames B and D.
The restriction of defining a different artwork for each frame increases the burden on the GUI developer. In addition, since a plurality of data needs to be stored for completely identical artworks, the size of created animation data becomes large.